PHILADELPHIA —The Phillies seemed like they were headed for a deflating loss — at the hands of yet another blown save — until rookie Bryson Stott stepped up to the plate. With Jean Segura on first base and no outs, Stott saw two pitches, then promptly launched the third — a 97.4 mph slider — 381 feet to centerfield that just barely stayed inside the park. It was enough to score Segura and tie the game at 6-6.
Two at-bats later, infielder Nick Maton hit a walkoff single to give the Phillies a much-needed 7-6 win over the Reds. The Phillies are now 68-55.
Bullpen struggles continue
The Phillies starters haven’t been going as deep of late, and with Seranthony Domínguez on the injured list, it has looked especially thin. Interim manager Rob Thomson wasn’t able to turn to trusted veteran David Robertson to hold their 5-4 lead over the Reds in the ninth inning, so he turned to Brad Hand.
Things did not go smoothly. A throwing error by shortstop Edmundo Sosa allowed Nick Senzel to get on base, and from there, Hand allowed a single and a two-RBI triple to give the Reds a 6-5 lead.
It was the Phillies’ third blown save in the past three games.
Offense explodes in the sixth inning
Initially, it seemed like the Phillies were going to be on the wrong side of history. Nick Lodolo had them hitless through five innings on Tuesday, after he’d held them scoreless in Cincinnati the week before. But in the sixth inning, the offense broke the game wide open, en route to a 5-4 win.
Edmundo Sosa, the Phillies’ nine-hole hitter, got them their first hit of the day — a double to center field. Rhys Hoskins walked, Alec Bohm singled to drive in Sosa, and J.T. Realmuto tripled to drive in Hoskins and Bohm. Castellanos singled to drive in Realmuto to give his team a 4-3 lead. By the end of the sixth inning, a lifeless lineup had come to life.
Ironically, it was Matt Vierling who clobbered the only home run of the day. Vierling had been batting .158 over his past seven games, and batting .140 over his last 15. He botched a catch at the center field wall in the sixth inning that loaded the bases for starter Ranger Suárez. Given all of that, Vierling was an unlikely choice to flash some power on Tuesday night, but launched Reds’ reliever Ian Gibaut’s cutter 416 feet into the left center field seats.
A few unlikely heroes
Another unlikely hero was left-handed reliever Michael Plassmeyer, who, oddly enough, played high school ball against — and travel ball with — Vierling in St. Louis. Plassmeyer was traded by the Giants to the Phillies on June 8 for catcher Austin Wynns, and was called up on Aug. 22 to provide length just in case a Phillies starter wasn’t able to go deep into a game. Sure enough, Ranger Suárez ran into some command issues in the sixth inning, and all of a sudden, Plassmeyer found himself pitching on a big league mound for the first time in his life.
After Suárez gave the Reds a 3-0 lead, and loaded the bases with two outs, Plassmeyer was able to quickly secure an out to end the sixth inning. From there, he induced two flyouts and a groundout for a 1-2-3 seventh inning. He didn’t light up the radar gun, but his command was outstanding — which, after Suárez’s outing, was what the Phillies needed. Plassmeyer threw only nine pitches, and eight were strikes.
The acquisition of Plassmeyer went under the radar. He was not a highly touted prospect — a fourth round draft pick out of the University of Missouri — but had found success recently in triple-A Lehigh Valley. His ERA dropped from 7.38 over 10 games started with the Giants’ triple-A affiliate, the Sacramento River Cats, to 2.83 over 11 games started with the IronPigs.
The Reds scored a run off of José Alvarado in the top of the eighth. Without Vierling’s home run, it would have been a tie ballgame entering the seventh. And without Plassmeyer’s shutdown performance in the seventh, the Reds could have blown the game wide open. Sometimes help comes from the most unlikely of places. On Tuesday night, it came from two former travel ball teammates in St. Louis.
Suárez cruises — and then struggles
Ranger Suárez’s first five innings looked a lot like Lodolo’s. He allowed only three hits, and no runs, with one walk. But then, in the sixth inning, something changed. He allowed a double, a walk, and a single to load the bases, and another single and two more walks from there. He was unable to finish the sixth inning.
It was an unusually shaky outing from Suárez, who entered Tuesday’s game with a 1.02 ERA over his last six starts — the second lowest ERA in baseball over that span. That it was the Reds, a team with the seventh worst OPS in baseball (.686), that increased his ERA to 1.54 is somewhat baffling.
Castellanos hitting streak continues
With his RBI single to left field in the bottom of the sixth, Nick Castellanos extended his hitting streak to 13 games (dating back to Aug. 11). Castellanos’ streak is the longest active hitting streak in the National League and the third-longest of his career.
